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Prime Minister Stephen Harper turned aside a demand by the opposition to have everyone involved in the uproar over Sen. Mike Duffy’s expense claims testify in public about the secret $90,172 payment to the senator.

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in the hot seat over details on the cheque his former chief of staff wrote to Senator Mike Duffy. NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau pressed the PM in Question Period.(The Canadian Press)

OTTAWA—Prime Minister Stephen Harper is offering few new answers about his chief of staff’s $90,172 payment to Sen. Mike Duffy, refusing to publicly release documents and turning aside demands that key players should face an open inquiry.

The Commons became like a courtroom Tuesday as NDP Leader Tom Mulcair grilled the prime minister on what he knew about the secret payment provided by his right-hand man, Nigel Wright.

But under tough questioning, Harper provided little new information, saying he was kept in the dark about the mystery cheque and insisting the PMO had no role in the controversy.

“By his own admission, Mr. Wright made a very serious error. For that, he has accepted sole responsibility and has agreed to resign,” Harper said. He added that Wright’s payment to Duffy will be probed by Commons and Senate ethics officials.

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The payment allowed the former Conservative senator to pay back $90,172 in improperly claimed expenses. After that, Duffy refused to cooperate with auditors digging into Senate expenses. Also, because of the repayment, senators went easy on Duffy in a final report on the audit.

Harper sidestepped demands to publicly release all documents connected to Wright’s arrangement to help Duffy, saying any papers will be provided to parliamentary ethics watchdogs.

And Harper didn’t answer directly when twice asked if the Duffy issue was ever discussed by the Conservative cabinet. Focusing on a key Senate committee report on improper spending, he said that report “is not a matter of government or cabinet business.”

Harper repeated his earlier assertion that he knew nothing about Wright’s cheque for Duffy until he learned about it after media reports. Until then, Harper told the Commons, he had believed Duffy had used his own money for the repayment.

Any suggestion that he discussed resolving the Duffy problem with Wright before news of the $90,172 cheque emerged publicly is “completely false,” Harper said.

But Trudeau was skeptical that Harper was kept in the dark until May 15. That was the day after an evening news report surfaced about a mystery deal by the PMO to get Duffy to repay the $90,172.

“This is what the prime minister would have Canadians believe: the chief of staff walks into the prime minister’s office on Wednesday morning (May 15), looks him in the eye and said that . . . he had secretly paid a sitting legislator $90,000 to obstruct an audit,” Trudeau said.

“Has the prime minister grown so out of touch that he actually expects Canadians to believe this story?

“The facts here,” Harper replied, “are reasonably simple, whether or not the opposition or anybody else particularly likes them.” He said Wright decided on his own to help Duffy and kept it quiet.

It was the first time that Harper has answered questions in the Commons about events that led to Wright’s resignation.

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